


The Box

by galaxysoup



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Angst, Future Fic, Grief/Mourning, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-11-26
Updated: 2003-11-26
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:41:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22532641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/galaxysoup/pseuds/galaxysoup
Summary: Letting go.
Relationships: Daniel Jackson/Jack O'Neill
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	The Box

**Author's Note:**

> (Originally posted to [The Comfort Zone](http://www.sg1hc.com/main.shtml) fanfic archive.)
> 
> Inspired by a MASH fic I read once a long time ago.

"And this one was at your twenty-first birthday," Jack tells the darkness of the apartment. "You remember that? He was there then." 

"I remember," Cassie says, knowing it doesn't matter whether she responds or not. 

"Remember him trying to explain the concept of carding to Teal'c? Teal'c didn't get it at all." 

"I remember," Cassie says again. 

Jack laughs as he sets down the photograph and digs another one out of the box. "Do you remember this?" he asks again, and she says yes without bothering to look at the picture. The gloss on most of them has worn away now, the shadows on the black-and-white ones have gotten golden and crystalized with age and improper developing. The rest are yellowed, brittle, and the edges are blunted and fuzzed with years of careful fingers. 

Cassie got an album for him once, even went so far as to put the pictures in it. That night when he asked for the box, she had handed him the album instead. He hadn't understood it. Just kept saying, over and over, "No, the box, Cass. The one next to my bed. The one with duct tape on the corners." Not understanding when she opened the slick new pages of the album to show him the pictures. "The box, next to my bed," he said. "The box, Cass." And when she finally went and got the box, empty, rescued it from the stack of recycling next to the trash can on the curb, he'd stared at it for what seemed like years. Tipped it upside down, as if the pictures would fall out somehow. 

"They're gone," he'd said. "He's gone. Oh my god, he's gone, he's gone..." over and over, in a kind of shocked monotone, until Cassie snapped and started pulling the pictures out of the album, tossing them frantically one by one back into the box where he could pick them up with trembling fingers, telling her the stories like she'd never heard them before. 

"Your twenty-first birthday," he'd said, and for the first time in a long time she'd felt the old resentment that he remembered the date because Daniel had been there, not because it had been her birthday. 

Jack turns over the next photograph. "Oh," he says softly, a bare gust of breath over parchment lips. "General Hammond's funeral. Daniel said a speech." 

He's getting down to the bottom of the box now, and Cassie tenses out of reflex. It's the same every night, and she knows it will be fine, but some small-child part of her still expects the worst. 

A flick of paper and dry skin. "Sam and Janet." He shoots a smile in her direction, locking eyes with her for the third time in his recitation. His eyes are little-boy sneaky, and for a moment she can see the man he was when she was young. 

She glances down at the photo, Sam and Janet standing in uniform sharing a defiant kiss. Daniel laughs at them from the sidelines, slightly out of focus, one hand over his mouth trying not to spoil the moment. She has a copy of it on her bedside table. 

"He always tried to tell me he knew before anyone else," Jack says. Cassie just nods. Some nights he tells her the whole conversation, word for word, or at least word for word in the way he's remembered it. Some nights he just goes for a fond smile, or rolled eyes and a knowing 'Scientists!' exasperated look. Tonight it's a smile. 

He picks the picture up and holds it for a moment, still obscuring the bottom of the box. Cassie knows it's not because it's a favorite shot. He's trying to delay the last picture. 

Finally, Sam and Janet come down to rest on the edge of the coffee table. There is a bare whisper of sound as they slip slightly to one side, and then Jack stares down at the last photograph. 

He never touches it. It's the only picture in the whole batch that still looks new. An official picture, with CLASSIFIED stamped in red at the bottom. Cassie's never known how he got it off the base, and she's never wanted to ask. 

He stares at it, and she knows what he's seeing. Every night, when she puts the pictures away, she looks at it too. She always tells herself she's not going to, that she's seen it before and that it's not the way she wants to remember Daniel, but every night she looks just the same. Caught, perhaps, in the past just like Jack is. 

Slowly, Jack puts the box down and struggles to his feet. He never says anything after the last picture, just shuffles off to bed. She watches his hunched back vanish in the gloom of his bedroom door, his bathrobe hanging off one bony shoulder, and for one brief, irrational instant she hates Daniel Jackson. 

The moment passes and she gets to her feet and starts collecting the pictures, stacking them neatly. She's careful not to let them get mixed up, because there's an order to them and Jack will be able to tell. 

She holds them loosely, feeling their edges press against her fingers, and looks into the box. 

His eyes. That's always the first thing she notices. Blue eyes, shadowed by the uneven brim of his hat and the shattered spiderweb haze of his glasses. One hand is up by his face, fingers curled like he's holding something precious close to him. His other arm is twisted back, vanishing behind his spine as he lies on his side in the dirt. The front of his jacket, half-visible in the shadow of an alien sun, is mottled green and reddish-brown. The red extends out in an irregular halo around his torso, and the shaft of a large spear protrudes from his chest, angling down towards the ground. She's seen the picture so many times the spear almost seems to be a natural part of him now. 

There's a part of her that wishes she remembered him better. She can remember little things, like sitting on her bedroom floor while he taught her to curse in French. Snuggling up against him at an SGC barbecue, her head in his lap and one of his arms draped across her side. He would die to protect her, she always knew that, and she was aware that it was supposed to make her feel safe. 

Cassie has always known too much about death to be comforted by such things. 

She puts the stack of photographs back in the box, pushing them down with defiant hardness. Not rough, never rough. She would never hurt Jack that way. 

Her memories of Daniel have been suffocated by Jack's stories. Daniel speaks in Jack's voice, now, with Jack's mannerisms and emphasis, and while part of her recognizes that some of Jack's mannerisms were originally Daniel's she also knows she can't be certain which ones belonged to whom. With each nightly recitation Jack struggles to bring Daniel back, and with each one he slips further away. 

She isn't surprised to turn and see him standing there, half-visible in the darkness next to the couch. Cassie has always known death well. 

"Hello, Daniel," she says. 

"Hello." He smiles at her, a tentative, apologetic smile she remembers with every fiber of her being. Suddenly it all comes rushing back: the smell of dust and old books, the crackle of ancient pages, the soft sound of his voice reciting long-forgotten myths as she lay curled up in bed. The tiny imperfections on his hands, scars from a lifetime of careful work. The way he always seemed so uncertain around people, everyone but Jack. 

"He's been waiting for you," she says. There is no recrimination in her voice, no irony. Just a sudden feeling of peace. 

"I know," he says. "I'm sorry I took so long." 

She shrugs. "It's okay. I don't think he really notices days any more." 

"No, I don't suppose so." He steps through the end of the couch and comes even with her, stopping when he sees the box. A smile tugs at the corners of his mouth. "Ah," he says. "I always wondered what happened to that." 

She frowns down at it, a battered tissue box with the top cut out to make it easier to store things in, and notices for the first time the faint lines of black paint spelling out what must have once been a message of some sort. Daniel smiles, seeing her confusion, but doesn't explain. 

"Say hi to your mother for me," he says, and quirks an eyebrow. "Both of them." He turns and vanishes into the darkness. She doesn't hear anything from the bedroom, and after a moment she puts the box down on the coffee table. She makes her way to the fireplace and turns the knob on the side, the gas fire lighting instantly and evenly. Jack had sneered at it at first, saying it wasn't a real fire until you'd spent ten minutes cursing over it with matches and newspaper, but he got used to it pretty quickly. 

For a moment she just stares at it. Then slowly she reaches back for the stack of photographs, feeding them quietly one by one into the flames. There is an easing of the air in the apartment, like a long sigh, and finally the box crumbles and turns to ash. 

**THE END**


End file.
